


Art Therapy

by GamblingDementor



Category: Mean Girls (2004), Mean Girls - Richmond/Benjamin/Fey
Genre: Art, F/F, Fluff and Humor, Teen Romance, gay confusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-18 12:21:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18699514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GamblingDementor/pseuds/GamblingDementor
Summary: Gretchen decides to work on herself after the whole Regina debacle and who better to guide her through art therapy than expert art freak Janis Sarkisian?disclaimer: I know nothing about art therapy this is just cute fluff.





	Art Therapy

The art room was tucked at the end of the third floor hall, cramped between two bigger classrooms, and had a lingering whiff of weed to it that all passerbys pretended not to notice. It was a cozy little place, a few easels popped down here and there, tables scattered haphazardly, and they had had the same owners week in and week out for years with the occasional graduation leaving one empty for the taking. Today, there would be more guests in it than the room probably had seen in years. Janis took a big breath and, after making sure one last time that everything was ready and organized, sat down for a minute before the new art therapy workshop would begin.

_SizeQueenDamian: so are you too busy for us mere mortal students already, miss TEACHER_   
_Caddy: she said 4 pm, right? I think it's starting soon she's probably not on her phone_   
_Caddy: break a leg, Janis! you can do it!_   
_SizeQueenDamian: tell us if you get any apples_   
_SizeQueenDamian: or if there's any cute boy_

Janis laughed and sent a few emojis in reply but as soon as she had typed up a quick thank you, the door opened to the familiar friendly face of her art teacher Ted. He was smiling dully. It was a running joke among the other art students that none of them had ever seen him not at least a little bit high. Today was no exception.

"I sacked the teacher's room, you think this'll be enough?" He asked her, dropping an armful of bags of chips and candy on the small supply table and counting the materials Janis had put out for the newcomers in the freak world of art classes. Looking at her face, he frowned, "Ready for this, dude?"

Janis was nervous, but she was not about to ever admit to that, to him or anyone else. This hadn't even been her idea. After the Plastics fiasco, several students had spoken up about their mental health needs and the idea had been brought up that art therapy classes would be greatly appreciated, even needed. Janis, though not the instigator of the project, had volunteered immediately to help assist Ted with the workshops. That had won her, technically, the title of teacher's assistant and she had been roasted for it (almost exclusively by a specific gay boy whom she loved more than anything) on their group chat for a couple of weeks now. Still, she was proud and excited for these classes and, though she wouldn't voice any such mushy feeling out loud, she truly hoped that this course would be helping others the way art therapy had her a long time ago.

"Sure," she said and Ted held up a hand for a fist bump. "So, who did you say was coming again?"

The door creeked open and a voice Janis would have never expected spoke up from behind her.

"Is this the art therapy thing?" Gretchen Wieners asked.

Janis twirled around to see the poor girl sigh in relief as Ted welcomed her in, soon followed by several other future pupils. The room was a bit crowded and at once much noisier than Janis was used to, but was just the price of not being a dickhead and actually trying to help people out of their funk. She had not expected Gretchen to be one of them, but then, she had not given Gretchen Wieners a second thought before in her life. Cady called her fragile and looked out for her and that had been about as much as Janis had learned about her. Whoever Regina had picked for a replacement best friends those years ago had not mattered to her. But now, Gretchen was free of that demon too, wasn't she? It only made sense for her to follow into Janis's footsteps.

"Welcome everybody!" Ted said nonchalantly in his bro way that had always made Janis feel comfortable − and goodness knew it took a lot for her to be comfortable around a man.

He began to explain the core objectives of the workshop − not a replacement for actual therapy, art or otherwise with a professional, but hopefully a practice that would give them more peace of mind. A therapeutic little hobby to help them navigate the sea storm of high school life.

"So, erm… There's snacks and me and Janis over here," Janis wriggled her fingers at her name being called, "will be here for you to guide you and stuff… Erm, let's all have fun and heal, man!"

None of the pupils seemed any more reassured but bit by bit, small groups started to disseminate across the room and, each grabbing different materials, all of them started to create.

Janis had been saved by art at a moment in time when she had thought she couldn't be saved, she wasn't worth saving. Talking about her emotions had not come easily to her and was still a struggle, but putting her whims and moods to a frame let her tame them, accept them and move on with her life. Of course, there had been lots of early paintings depicting violent acts of revenge − not exclusively but quite frequently targeting the instigator of her own personal hell of a seventh grade − but she had quickly learned to make her art a tool of well-being and creative outlet. There was more to her story than what Regina had made of it.

Going from person to person across the room, she saw that each of them were at wildly different stages of personal expression.

"Erm, so…" Janis didn't quite know what to make of the field of army airplanes Kevin was angrily scribbling across the entire large sheet of paper in rough and amateur pencil. "That's… That's really good, dude."

"I can feel the wrath leave my soul," he replied and made some bizarre nerdy gestures which made her smirk. She would have to ask Cady about those later.

"That's the spirit," she said, patting his shoulder. "Let it all out, man!"

She left him to what might have been spaceship sounds. A couple of short steps further, Gretchen was sitting alone, covering up with an arm what she had been drawing. Janis saw a handful of pink and purple markers on the table. How surprising.

"Hey," she said, sitting down next to Gretchen. The room was small for the amount of people and their knees touched.

She did not know why she should feel awkward around Gretchen. Of course, the obvious reason that she had contributed to the rift between her and Regina, but then, could that truly be counted against her when it had also meant her freedom? Still, Janis was not quite sure what she should say. A glance around them told her that Ted was busy with a little group of shy freshmen. She sat and waited.

"I don't think I'm doing it right," Gretchen admitted after a silent moment of protecting her drawing from outer eyes unmovingly. Janis frowned.

"What do you mean?"

Gretchen revealed her mosaic of abstract pink-ish hues that had no heads or tails. Her lines weren't especially elaborate and there was no recognizable shape to them but Janis felt the emotion of them all too heavily as soon as she saw the drawing. It was an explosion of pent-up frustration, sharpness behind the girly tones and though it made no apparent sense, she understood it.

"What are you talking about," she retorted excitedly, pulling the paper towards her to look closer. "This is tits!"

Gretchen hastily grabbed her piece back, covering it up with her flat hands. Perfect manicure, Janis noted, some sort of lilac with a hint of glitter. She briefly glanced at her own messy bit down nails that she hid behind fake black and pretended it was a choice of looks.

"No, it's not!" Gretchen sounded somewhere between outraged and terrified. "It's not even a person, it's… I don't know what it is."

Janis looked at her contrite face and felt a whirlwind of memories in the split second their eyes met. Art therapy when she was twelve. How many days sitting her butt on a tall stool next to the easel too big for her − she had always been drawn to painting, even back then − being asked how she felt today, what she wanted to draw, what it represented, if she wanted to say more about it or if she just wanted to paint more. The encouragements had meant the world to her and had carried her through the rest of the year. It felt like a lifetime ago but she felt the liberation, the excitement of a blank canvas every time she pulled out her paint brushes.

"I love it," she said simply and Gretchen's eyes lit up.

"You do? You really do?"

Janis smiled. Holding a hand over Gretchen's, not touching but very close, she silently asked for her permission to pick up the sheet of paper again. Gretchen hesitantly pulled her hands from it, tucking them nervously on her lap. From up close, Janis saw the piece more clearly, the insistence on some lines, others barely a suggestion, the messy hurried hashings in some parts. It wasn't anything, yet it was. It lived and breathed the feelings of Gretchen Wieners. That wasn't nothing.

"Yeah, it's cool as fuck!" She said. "Did it feel good drawing it? It looks… like it was felt."

But Gretchen turned away and didn't look keen on commenting on her work any more.

The next week, a good third of the new students had dropped the workshop. Gretchen hadn't. She spent a good chunk of the period clinging to Ted's side and Janis felt a rejection she hadn't thought possible coming from a Plastic. It was short-lived, however. When she approached her again, Gretchen was deep in creative focus. She startled when Janis joined her at the same table.

"That's nice," she commented.

It was a rough sketch of a person. The proportions were all wonky, of course, the limbs made little sense and the facial expressions were hardly decipherable but it was progress nonetheless.

"I don't know," Gretchen said, a little bit whining. "I don't think it looks right at all."

"Well, what were you trying to do?"

"It was supposed to be Re…" She stopped herself mid-name, as if both of them did not know exactly who she was going to say. "It doesn't look like her at all."

Janis look at the drawing. She did not want to be discouraging Gretchen. She also did not want to be lying to her.

"Why did you want to draw her?"

Gretchen looked like the question was outside of her very realm of existence.

"Wh-why wouldn't I?"

"No, yeah, right," Janis replied, looking back at the drawing. "I mean, _why_ is what matters. It's not art class per se, it's like, therapeutic shit. If you know why you draw something, then you learn stuff about yourself and that's the point. It doesn't matter if it looks like crap. You know?"

But Gretchen was caught onto the tidbit of feedback and looked at her horrified.

"You think it looks like crap?"

"What? No, no, no, I just meant that…" She sighed. "Let me explain again."

As soon as Cady had learned that Gretchen was part of the workshops when Janis mentioned her offhandedly once, she began to periodically enquire about how she was doing. It was that caring part of her that Janis could never quite replicate the same way.

"She's vulnerable," Cady was saying. "You can't be too harsh on her."

"I'm not!" Janis retorted. "I'm _not_."

Gretchen was ridiculously sensitive to any word that came out of Janis's mouth, she soon realized. It left her wielding a double edged sword without ever asking to. Any criticism might make her crumble, but on the other hand, the smallest compliment had her thrilled to bits to an extent that did not look, to Janis, to be quite healthy either. Though Gretchen had found some new friends and better ones too, Janis could still make out all around her the aura of Regina George, the imprint still there after years of being hammered in. She had spent years hating Regina for ruining her life but seeing the hold she still had onto Gretchen and her confidence, she told herself that maybe she hadn't even known the worst of it herself.

"It's about trusting yourself," Janis told Gretchen, showing her how to hold her pencil and draw firm and smooth lines. "That's why this art therapy stuff works, it's skills you can use for yourself. You learn to be confident and assertive and shit."

"Yeah!" Gretchen cried out excitedly.

"You start being more independent and it's good for all kind of shit in your life."

"Yeah!" Gretchen repeated, a little more forced.

"Now try this out," she said, handing her back the pencil.

"Yeah! I can do this!"

She grabbed the pencil enthusiastically and stared at the blank sheet of paper for a few long seconds.

"Was that assertive enough?" She asked hurriedly before the lead even touched the page. "How did I do? Was I confident?"

Janis smiled.

"Alright, let's try that one more time."

Gretchen was becoming Janis's favorite student, if she had to have one. She would never tell her, of course, and she forced herself to spend time with the other people in the class. Not as much, not as long, but it saved the last shreds of her dignity. There was something simple and enjoyable in seeing Gretchen week by week become better, happier. She had not known she cared but the more lessons passed between them, the more she found herself caring. Quite a lot, in fact. She did not know what to make of that.

"Mind if I sit here?"

On cue, Gretchen's voice shook her out of her thoughts. It was Friday, which meant that Cady had a different lunch time than her today and was currently boring herself dead in calculus. Damian had texted her that he was "sick", which might or might not have to do with his one of his online friends visiting Chicago for the first time. Janis did not mind spending the occasional lunch alone at all, not anymore, but Gretchen's hopeful face as she looked intently at the seat in front of Janis was enough to convince her that being alone was not a prerequisite for a good lunch.

"Sure," she said and cleared her things from the space. "Go ahead."

There was a brief silence before Gretchen began to talk about something mindless − some fact she had learned in class. It wasn't gossip. In fact, Janis hadn't heard Gretchen gossip at all since they had become acquainted. Conversation with her was as easy as it was with just about anyone else. She (begrudgingly) accepted Janis's snarky attitude and made polite remarks of her own. Lunch passed much too rapidly. Neither of them made any comment on how odd it was to be spending lunch together for the first time, maybe because it wasn't odd at all. It felt completely normal and pleasant.

"Alright, I'll see you next week in…"

She was standing, ready to leave when across her room, in the distance, her eyes crossed Regina's. It was only a split second before Regina looked away, her face stern and not giving away a hint that she had just been spying on them. Maybe it was all in Janis's head. Likely it wasn't. She turned to Gretchen, who didn't seem to have noticed.

"Hey, actually," Janis said. "I got some cool technique I wanna show you at home. Do you wanna hang out tonight?"

Blush spread across Gretchen's cheeks but she nodded.

"I would love to."

Janis was not used to visitors. Damian was a constant guest to the point of almost belonging there, but he was more of a secondary resident there than a visitor. Cady came occasionally, but the Herons' was their usual hangout. When Gretchen entered her house, Janis thought the sight of it so odd that she had to shake herself into the reality of the situation. Gretchen did not seem to understand it any better. She sat on Janis's desk chair, afraid to sit on the much more comfortable bed, afraid to look around too curiously, afraid to breathe too loud. Clutching to her side the tiniest purse Janis had ever seen, she looked like she expected a bomb to drop on their heads any second now.

"Look, it's easy," Janis said and grabbed her sketchpad and a mechanical pen. "It's something you feel. Tell me something about why you're in the therapy class."

Gretchen did not seem reassured in any way but her hands fell to her lap in an obvious attempt to look more relaxed than she must have been.

"I thought…" She focused on her words, but glanced nervously as Janis began to draw lightly. "I thought I needed something to do, a skill I could learn to… Janis, what are you doing?"

"Listening to you," Janis said, which did little to reassure her either, but Gretchen nodded anyway.

"I wanted to, to feel like I could do something that's just mine. I mean, I know it's a whole class, I just… I wanted to feel… different."

Janis had never not felt different in her life, but she knew that longing just as well.

"And do you?"

Gretchen sat back a bit more comfortably.

"I don't know," she admitted. "Sometimes I'm afraid I'll never be that good at anything." She smiled at herself, caught in her own thought. "I dress to kill, though."

Janis snorted. It wasn't wrong.

"Well, here's what I feel about this," she said and handed Gretchen the sketchpad.

She instantly wished she had the sketchpad again because when she saw Gretchen's reaction to the drawing, she wished she could have drawn her all over again with the look of amazement and wonder.

"It's me!"

"It's you," Janis smiled.

It was just a rough sketch and figure drawing had never been Janis's favorite type of art. Still, she had tried to capture Gretchen's self-doubt and the hope hidden behind it even despite how much she punished herself for it.

"It's what I was saying," she said. She stood and joined Gretchen by her desk. "You gotta listen to the feelings and use that when you draw."

"Listen to the feelings…" Gretchen pondered.

"This isn't that hard, I'm sure you could do it too," she said encouragingly.

Gretchen took the pencil that was offered. She was hesitant to try but Janis smiled. They had been going over the basics of human proportions the past couple weeks and though Gretchen's comfort zone was still in abstract shapes she did not have to explain, she pushed herself out of it and started sketching.

"I can do this," she muttered to herself. "I can do this!"

The sketch she showed Janis was crude and a little bit wonky, proportions off here and there but that didn't matter in the least. It was a sketch of Gretchen standing victoriously, proudly. It felt good enough, which was all that mattered.

"See, it looks cool as fuck! You got it."

"I got it," Gretchen grinned.

"That's how this art shit is supposed to be," Janis said and smiled down at her. "That's how it's supposed to feel."

Gretchen's big eyes were staring up and filled Janis with confusion. She was not used to much affection except from close friends − should she add Gretchen to that list at some point? How much longer till she put that off? But there was more than affection in that gaze. No, what it held was more akin to adoration, something boundless and unrestrained. Janis felt like a window had been open to Gretchen's true self through her eyes and they were maddeningly large with whatever it was that they contained. In fact, Janis seemed to lose sight of anything else but the very focused face of Gretchen that seemed closer and closer as she stood up and…

 _Oh_.

Gretchen's lips tasted like raspberry lipgloss and desperation. A hand delicately grasped the flap of Janis's jacket, the other on her own heart between them. Janis had never been kissed before. She had not kissed anyone either. Her own arms hung hopelessly from her sides as her brain struggled to catch up. _A kiss. This is a kiss. My,_ no, _our first kiss._ Her arm tentatively found Gretchen's waist but she had barely touched her that Gretchen took a sudden step back like the contact had burned her raw. Her eyes were widened with something much different than before − fear?

Janis wanted to say something − she felt like she should be the one to. What was there to say? A thousand thoughts were battling for the right to pass her lips but nothing was enough. Should she thank Gretchen? Should she confess feelings she did not know if she had? Should she reciprocate another kiss and settle the matter wordlessly? The latter option seemed the most preferrable but just as she had made that decision in her heart, the distant slamming of the front door shook Gretchen out of whatever trance she had been in. She let out a squeaky whimper and, grabbing her purse, sprinted out of Janis's room.

Janis fled behind her down the stairs, calling out her name, but it was too late. Janis and her just arrived dad watched Gretchen exit through the front door without answering Janis's pleas. Once more the door slammed shut and the sound of it resonated for a few very heavy seconds of otherwise silence. Her dad's voice was quiet and tame.

"So, I didn't know you guys…"

" _No comment_ ," Janis bit out and ran back to her room before her dad could apologize or worse, ask her to.

She threw herself face first flat on the bed. Maybe if she sank deep enough into her pillows, she might suffocate out of this ridiculous drama. So this was what kissing felt like. It had taken her too long to even awaken to it and it had been lost as fast as a good art piece idea that went undrafted. If she bit her lips, she could just remember the taste, even the feel of it… Her hands twitched. Too soon, too fast. She wanted to text Gretchen, to call her, to do _something_ , but her entire body felt numb. She thought of Damian, how he sometimes teased her for being too distracted, lost in Janis world before realizing he had been talking and fast tracking back into the conversation. Was this all her first kiss would ever be? A too brief moment in time she near missed and which went away as soon as she caught it?

Then there was the meaning behind it and there, just was just as entirely lost, if not more. The look in Gretchen's eyes, that unlimited affection. Could Janis ever repay that in full? But did she ever need to, with the way Gretchen had slipped from her so urgently? She couldn't say she had ever truly suspected that there was anything to Gretchen's friendliness until the evidence for more was shoved right in her face. Now that the evidence was there and gone, what to make of it?

She wanted to kiss Gretchen again, if she had to start her train of thoughts somewhere. Her body so completely pressed into the mattress was burning with the taste of not having had enough. Her hands clutched the sheets, her mouth groaning into the pillows. She just needed some more, a lot more, in fact. Images she hadn't ever mustered up once before were suddenly swarming in her mind, all more tempting than the next. In a flicker of seconds, she could now envision herself holding Gretchen close, cupping her waist with a hand, her face with the other. How nice it would feel to look deep into those dark eyes, the fretting warmth of them and kiss her worries silent. And much worse, locations now offered themselves to her imagination, unbidden. Pushing Gretchen against the nearest wall and kissing her breathless. The worst of all was this very bed with which she was becoming one as long minutes of daydreaming overtook her. Lying Gretchen down in it, pulling the covers over their bodies, kissing her stupid and…

At dinner, Janis's dad seemed intent on not daring a single glance in her direction. The favor was repaid in full. When they all lay in bed later that night, Janis could hear the beginning of hushed discussions between her parents which she couldn't quite hear the words of. She put on a random playlist on her phone till the whispers died down.

Janis did not see Gretchen at lunch the next day, not even at another table. They had no class in common and no common friends outside Cady, but wondering about Gretchen with her would prompt questions Janis did not want to be asked. She knew the ball was in her camp and it only belonged to her to make the next move, of course. She knew eventually she would, but the moments kept slipping from her and by the time she felt ready to try and reach out to Gretchen, the day of the next art workshop had come and she just decided that the necessary (albeit terrifying) talk would have to happen face-to-face.

Gretchen had arrived early and was focused on her drawing when Janis walked into the room. Week after week, the attendance to the workshops had slowly stabilized into a small-ish group of endured would-be artists and Gretchen had a seat of her own all reserved. Janis breathed in and took her usual seat at her side.

It was a drawing of their kiss. She knew it, of course, and how well she knew and remembered that moment but anyone else might not have known it for what it was just looking at the sketch. There wasn't much suggesting what was actually happening, the drawing stopping at their shoulders, but even without the faces, Janis remembered all too well that it had indeed been a kiss. What was there was just as vivid as her mind's memories, the way Gretchen's hand had clung to her jacket, the closeness yet insufferable distance between their bodies, her own stupidly limp arms as a kaleidoscope of confusion had exploded in her mind. Gretchen, for the first time, Janis noted, was letting her have an unobstructed view of the drawing. _I held her waist,_ Janis told herself defensively, staring at her arm on the drawing that hung there without a hint of motion. _I wanted to hold her. I wanted to kiss her back. I did._

She cleared her throat but Gretchen wouldn't look at her. The perfect student, she was focused entirely on her drawing. She kept erasing and redrawing the hand that had been clutching her heart, reworking its shape, its shading, its position. Janis loved seeing the way she held her pencil, how it floated on the paper. She had known she loved art for years but it had hit her all over again since she had started sharing it with others. With Gretchen.

"I like it," she said eventually and though Gretchen made no indication she was listening, her wrist paused. "I liked it."

Gretchen sat there unmoving for a few long seconds before starting to work on the other hand on the drawing, the one that had been holding onto Janis.

"Me too," she muttered.

Janis's hand hovered over hers for a flicker of hesitation before grasping it. Sliding their palms together, she entwined their fingers and held tight.

"Do you wanna get like a milkshake or something later?"

Gretchen looked at their hands, then at Janis and there was a much too familiar affection in her eyes when she nodded.

Janis did not like to mention that her parents had gifted her a car for her sixteenth birthday, but just the sight of it removed the complete doubt that she could be the same kind of person as Regina or any of the former Plastics indeed. Her old pickup truck of a car made increasingly worrying sounds every time she started it and was littered with half of her life on the backseat which Cady made sure to remark on every time Janis drove her anywhere. Gretchen made no such comment. In fact, neither of them said anything at all as they quietly walked to the car and climbed in it after school. Janis had been afraid that maybe Gretchen would have been scared (or worse, ashamed) to be seen with her but though silent, she was smiling from ear to ear.

"I know this place," Janis said. "We'll just grab something and… and…"

"Talk?" Gretchen offered.

Janis smiled. Their eyes met briefly before she turned back to the road.

"Yeah. Talk."

They took their orders at the counter. In an instant of panic, Janis wondered if they ought to be sharing one milkshake like in the movies, but Gretchen stepped right next to her to get herself her own Wildberry Delight Paradize and Janis took it upon herself to at least pay for the both of them. She grabbed her own Dark Chocolate Fudge Fun Ride and they sat at the furthest booth from the entrance or the counter.

Gretchen took a loud slurp from her pinkish glass. Janis lost herself in the moment for just as long as it took for her to remember her purpose in bringing them here.

"I wanted to talk to you," she said. A thought, and she smirked, "Well, not just talk…"

Some sound came from Gretchen which she hid under another gulp.

"You kissed me," Janis went on and observed as Gretchen suddenly became ardently preoccupied with the thick cardboard straw in her glass. "It was… unexpected."

Gretchen's face fell. _Shit_.

"But I liked it! I just didn't… Yeah, it was unexpected but a _good_ surprise."

"I didn't mean to!" Gretchen cried out. "Well, I did, but not like…"

She still wouldn't meet Janis's eyes and how she missed that, those lovely dark eyes of hers.

"I just didn't know there was… interest… on your part."

"Uh huh," Gretchen muttered anxiously. "Uh huh. Yeah, maybe."

Janis reached across the booth and took Gretchen's hand. It had been fidgeting but calmed down as soon as she touched it. Gretchen looked up then in what seemed halfway between pure terror and utter confusion, like she hardly recognized the words or sounds that came out of her own mouth.

"Again, I wanted to talk to you," Janis said firmly. "To tell you that I'm in."

"In?"

Janis reveled in the feeling of her hand in hers. She'd held hands before, of course, often Damian, even Cady, but never before she was about to ask someone if…

"D'you wanna try it? The dating thing?"

Gretchen looked at her with fear, which turned into nervous giggling, which turned into her trying to hide it in her milkshake, which turned into a small burp as she took a too large sip, which full circled back into fear again. Janis burst out laughing but squeezed her hand affectionately.

"I dunno if that's a yes."

"I'm sorry I burped!" Gretchen whined. "I always do this, I ruin everything and…"

"Hey," Janis smiled. "Hey. I don't fucking care if you burp, are you kidding? Me and Damian have burp contests all the time, I'm gross too, dude."

"It's just, Regina hated it when…"

"I'm not Regina," Janis cut her probably quite a bit more sharply than she ought to be speaking to the girl she was still in the process of asking out. Attempting to regain her smile, she tried to sound more reassuring. It was a rearranging of herself, trying to dig deeper than the wall of snark she always, always hid behind. "I'm not like Regina and I'm not like Cady, either. And as far as I know, neither of them asked you to be their girlfriend."

"Girlfriend," Gretchen whispered with reverence. She seemed at that word to snap out of the funk she'd been burying herself in. "Yes. Yeah, girlfriend. I'd like that."

Janis smiled in relief. She pulled Gretchen's hand to her lips for kisses and the matter was settled.

Later in the car, those kisses were repaid on the lips. Gretchen had stopped her right around the corner of the Wieners house and Janis had barely made to open the car door when lovely Gretchen had grabbed her collar instead and pulled her down so hard their foreheads had crashed against one another quite painfully before their mouths did. Still, they had caught up very easily indeed. It was dark out and a bit chilly in the old car which had no heating or AC and the awkward position was uncomfortable, but her hands tight around Gretchen's waist and eager arms around her neck in return, kissing each other senseless couldn't have possibly been any better.

Except the next time was, in fact, better. It was a date at the movies. Janis looked warily down her wallet when Gretchen wasn't looking, but as the movie began and they missed every second of it, she told herself the money had been well spent after all.

It became a thing. Dates, hangouts, special times, however they would call it, became more frequent and Janis looked forward to each more than the one that had come before. To her slight surprise and great appreciation, she found that she was, in fact, increasingly fonder of Gretchen, even to the point of crushing. Love wasn't quite there yet but it was a shape in the horizon and she was walking steady in its direction.

Gretchen, she was discovering every day, was easy to talk to and easier to get attached to, perhaps because they were so very different from one another. There was a stiffness to her that made her react to everything Janis said with unearned astonishment and delight. She was still working on undoing the chains that had bound her before but, Janis was realizing, the charm of her was in how hard she was trying to, how sincerely she desired to carve her own little path even if it scared her. And it did scare her a whole lot.

They had officially not told anyone they were dating. It only weighed on Janis as much as she longed to be honest with the other people around them, but Gretchen was not entirely there yet and Janis did not want to rush her. And in any case, there was something naughty and endearing about being not just the sole recipient of Gretchen's adoration but also the only witness of it. At least in theory, officially.

In practice, though.

She had not peeped a single word of it to Damian, but he had not been blind to how much time she'd been spending with Gretchen or of their constant communicating. He had guessed all on his own and he had questioned her on it, she had kept her silence rather than denying it, which had counted as an admission in his books. And regardless of a single person knowing or not, it was evident to Janis that the goose would be loose at some point, and sooner rather than later.

There was a bit and ever more of Gretchen in Janis's life and vice versa. It started unsurprisingly with lunch breaks spent together and not always with the excuse of Cady to cover for them. In fact, Cady's knowing suspicion was a good reason _against_ these lunches but it was a risk they were willing to take. The rest followed bit by bit. Gretchen doing her nails − how much crisper the end result and how tensed the actual application, the physical closeness between them as Janis struggled not to move. Janis holding her bag for her. Studying together in the school library. Other dates, bolder dates. And the more icky intimate stuff as well. Talking about Regina − never a lot, never comfortably, but talking nonetheless. Each piece of the puzzle was small but when they stacked and fit together, they began a pretty decent picture.

"Does this look nice?" Gretchen asked tentatively and Janis swirled around her desk chair to have a look at the little fashion show she had begged poor Gretchen to go through when she had noticed her picking at a particular rip in her jacket that day. Gretchen never commented on her style, but Janis knew she must have had many opinions on it.

She had removed her own short denim jacket for this, a frilly little tank top underneath with lace at the rims. The way Janis's much larger garment fell on her body down to her knees, how it flopped shapelessly yet somehow filled Janis with something she was terrified to feel. _Oh no. I think I like her._ Gretchen was wringing her hands nervously, looking down at the floor between their feet, the distance between them that Janis suddenly broke. She caught Gretchen's waist and held tight, bringing her flush against her, which prompted a cry of surprise. Gretchen looking up at her was still a little ball of nerves and Janis smiled.

"Yeah," she said and took a step forward that Gretchen matched backward. "It's fetch."

Her bed wasn't made and her room was a mess and she supposed that Gretchen would have deserved a lot better than this when she pressed her down onto the bed. But when her arms clung to Janis's back and shoulders, when they giggled breathlessly together after a thousand kisses and more, when their bodies sank down deep into the mattress like it could swallow them up in a little bubble of bliss and pleasure, Janis told herself that a first time needn't be judged so hard after all. She liked this time just fine. And it wasn't like the bed would have been any less messy after they were done if it had been made in the first place.

Gretchen's face was tucked into her shoulder and the words were muffled as she spoke, but there was nothing else in the world Janis would rather have heard.

"I've been thinking," she said carefully and Janis's fingers traced lazy lines across her naked back, "That we should maybe, like, tell others. That we're together." She leaned up and Janis saw she was frowning. "What do you think?"

Janis pressed a kiss on Gretchen's forehead to soothe the wrinkling of it away. She kissed her nose, because it was cute and she had wanted to do it. She kissed her mouth and kissed her again and again.

"Yeah," she said eventually. "Sounds like a plan."

She grabbed her phone and, modestly aiming for above shoulders only, kissed Gretchen's cheek just as she snatched a pic. She showed it to Gretchen who, despite the warmth in her cheeks which made her look ridiculously cute and hot, nodded her approval. Coming out was as easy as a couple flicks of her thumb on social media. #girlfriends #mynewmuse #dating and Janis and Gretchen's relationship was floating the interwebs for the world to judge. The response was immediate, comments upon comments, other students thinking themselves theorists and experts on the newly revealed relationship. Gretchen's phone was exploding with it as well and for a second, Janis wondered if she should try and distract her from it. Before she could make that decision, Gretchen began to smile and that was a lovely sight Janis wanted to see over and over again.

"How do you feel?" She asked.

The group chat was bombarding her with questions, Damian sending a trickle of gifs of victory sillier than the next, Cady faking outrage at not having been told prior.

"Good," Gretchen replied. "Free." A pause and she put her phone back on Janis's nightstand, screen flat against it. "And you?"

Janis dropped her phone too and held her close.

"I feel awesome," she said and realized just how much she meant it. "Thanks to you."

She kissed the top of Gretchen's head which was repaid with a kiss against her neck. _I like her so much._ For better or worse, what they had each gone through had led them to this exact moment. Janis was intent on making the absolute best of it.

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE leave a comment if you've read this and enjoyed! It really means so much more than you can imagine.


End file.
